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VisionariesLab.com ~~resonating with Innate Intelligence~~
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VisionariesLab.com ~~resonating with Innate Intelligence~~
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Book - Visionaries Thrive In All Times [Purchase Here]
Health & Nutrition (serious & not so serious)
Discussion: Under construction
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Part of the Problem..
Bush in China and not very happy.. After cutting short a press conference in China on Sunday, President Bush tried to make a quick getaway, but couldn't find the door out and admitted, "I was trying to escape. Obviously, it didn't work." See the video here. ...
Among the words haunting George W. Bush these days are ones he delivered in April 2004, at a Buffalo, N.Y., appearance he made to talk up the U.S. Patriot Act. Shown below, the key passage goes: "Anytime you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so." http://www.salon.com/ent/video_dog/politics/2006/01/03/bush/
Blood and BetrayalAfter four years of the badly botched "war on terror," are we ready to hear the hard words of Robert Fisk -- a gutsy war correspondent who says the West has wronged the Middle East? Click here for the story.. Salon.com
Conyers calls for select committee to study impeachmentWhile some Democrats are raising the specter of impeachment with respect to the president's secret spying program, Rep. John Conyers has quietly introduced a resolution calling for the creation of a House select committee to determine whether Bush should be impeached for encouraging the torture of detainees, misusing and misrepresenting intelligence about Iraq, misleading Americans about the reasons for war there and retaliating against critics, like former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who called his actions into question. Continued
Democrats: DHS Hasn't Fulfilled Promises By LARA JAKES JORDAN Associated Press Writer December 27,2005 | WASHINGTON -- The Homeland Security Department, created in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, has failed to fulfill 33 of its own pledges to better protect the nation, according to a report released Tuesday by House Democrats. The report concludes that gaps remain in federal efforts to secure an array of areas, including ports, borders and chemical plants. There also are still delays in the department's sharing terror alerts and other intelligence with state and local officials, the review said. Compiled for 13 Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee, the report analyzes public statements and congressional testimony on Bush administration security goals since 2002. Responding, Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said the department is prioritizing resources and programs based on "today's greatest threats." Continued Was the NSA listening?Does NBC's Andrea Mitchell know something about the Bush administration's domestic spying program that the rest of us don't? As AMERICAblog's John Aravosis notes, Mitchell put a question to the New York Times' James Risen Tuesday that suggests that she might.In an interview with Risen, Mitchell asked if he had any information suggesting that the National Security Agency has been eavesdropping on CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour. Risen said he hadn't heard that. Has Mitchell heard something to that effect, or was she just using Amanpour's name as the example of what might have gone wrong with the spying program? We don't know the answer to that, and neither does Aravosis. But as Aravosis notes, the implications of tapping Amanpour's phone lines could be enormous. There's the chilling thought that government officials might be listening in on the conversations of a reporter, and then there's this: Amanpour's husband, who like any husband might have had occasion to use his wife's phone, happens to be Jamie Rubin, the former Clinton administration official who served as a foreign policy advisor for John Kerry's presidential campaign. Update: As several readers note in the comments below, the exchange between Mitchell and Risen about Amanpour has rather mysteriously disappeared from the transcript of the interview posted on the MSNBC Web site. If MSNBC has an explanation for why Mitchell's question and Risen's answer have disappeared, we'd sure like to hear it. Did Mitchell not ask the question -- that seems unlikely, doesn't it? -- or does someone at MSNBC just wish she hadn't? (Found at: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/01/04/eavesdropping/index.html)
Who Is Giving Away Jack Abramoff's Money? By ELIZABETH WHITE Associated Press Writer January 05,2006 | -- President Bush and several lawmakers have announced they are refunding or giving to charity some or all of the donations they or their political action committees received from once-powerful lobbyist Jack Abramoff, his associates or clients. Abramoff pleaded guilty Tuesday to three federal charges as part of an agreement with prosecutors requiring him to cooperate in a broad corruption investigation into members of Congress. This week: --President Bush, $6,000 from Abramoff, his wife and the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan for the Bush-Cheney 2004 re-election campaign is being donated to the American Heart Association. Abramoff raised at least $100,000 for the campaign. --House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill. A spokesman would not say much money Hastert received or planned to donate. --House Majority Leader Roy Blunt, R-Mo., $8,500 to charity. --Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, $15,000 to local charities in suburban Houston. Continued
The IRS strikes at transparency -- and at the poorIt would be easy to miss them amid all the attention paid to the Alito hearing and the Abramoff scandal, but New York Times reporter David Cay Johnston has just produced a pair of must-read stories about the way the Internal Revenue Service works under George W. Bush. In the first of the stories, Johnston reports that the IRS has stopped releasing information that shows "how thoroughly" it audits "big corporations and the rich" and how deeply it discounts the taxes it assesses after such audits. For decades, Johnston says, the IRS has made this information available to a Syracuse University professor who has, in turn, made it available to the public. But in May 2004, the IRS said it would no longer provide this information, despite a 1976 court order that required it to do so. The information clampdown shouldn't come as a surprise to those familiar with the way the Bush administration views government transparency. Over the last five years, the administration has, among other things, eliminated statistics on global terrorism from the State Department's annual report on global terrorism; deleted data about racial profiling from a report about racial profiling; and tried to discontinue a Labor Department report on layoffs. In each of those cases, the administration moved to shut down the information flow when the data to be released would have been politically embarrassing. The IRS insists that it is withholding the audit information only out of concern for the costs of providing it. But anyone care to wager that, if and when the IRS faces a new court order to release the information, we'll begin to see some other reasons that the Bush administration didn't want to release this information anymore? Continued
Rove: It's the (eternal) war, stupid! In his first speech in two months, "Bush's brain" laid out his plan for GOP victory: War, war and more war. By Walter Shapiro Jan. 21, 2006 | WASHINGTON -- It was Karl Rove's first public speech in two months. But there were no dramatic cries of "He's back -- our long national nightmare is over!" when the recently reclusive White House political guru appeared Friday before several hundred members of the Republican National Committee. While Rove is still dancing under a legal cloud in the ongoing CIA leak investigation, he radiated no visible signs of distress. A lesser man might have been daunted not only by fears of a possible indictment by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, but also by worries that the woeful 27 percent approval rate (the Gallup Poll) for the Republican Congress presages a GOP rout in November. Continued
How the world's most notorious terrorist just launched an obscure left-wing American author into bestseller stardom. By Michael Scherer Jan. 21, 2006 | WASHINGTON -- Watch out, Oprah Winfrey, Osama bin Laden has jumped into the book-promotion game. On Wednesday, the 72-year-old Washington author William Blum existed only on the fringes of the publishing industry. His 2000 foreign-policy diatribe, "Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower," ranked No. 205,763 on Amazon's bestseller list. His byline rarely appeared in print, he says, because even left-leaning journals like the Nation often found his views too radical. But then the world's No. 1 newsmaker, bin Laden, showed up Thursday on the Al-Jazeera network to promise another terrorist attack on America, ask President Bush to withdraw American troops -- and plug Blum's book. "If Bush decides to carry on with his lies and oppression," the reclusive terrorist announced, in a video message bounced to a potential audience of billions, "it would be useful for you to read the book 'Rogue State'." Continued
Coretta Scott King's Funeral and Politics Mourning Doves http://www.salon.com/ent/video_dog/politics/2006/02/07/kingfuneral /
Colonel of TruthFormer Bush insider Lawrence Wilkerson blasts Dick Cheney's "paranoia" -- and says Cheney and Rumsfeld are to blame for Abu Ghraib. By Mark Follman Feb. 27, 2006 | WASHINGTON -- There's been no shortage of former high-level insiders going public with fierce criticisms of the Bush administration. But since first speaking out last fall, Lawrence Wilkerson, a retired Army colonel who served as former Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff, has proved the fiercest. In a watershed speech at the New America Foundation in October, Wilkerson delivered a blistering indictment, charging that on vital national-security matters, the White House was run by an anti-democratic "cabal" led by Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Wilkerson has also suggested that he and his boss at the State Department were duped by the case for war forged inside the Pentagon and CIA under the close watch of Cheney and his top aides. He and Powell were kept in the dark about doubts over Iraq's WMD capabilities, even as they worked to vet the intelligence before Powell's landmark pro-war presentation to the U.N. Security Council in February 2003. It turned out to be built on a stockpile of fictions. But Wilkerson said bogus intelligence isn't his principal reason for coming forward -- it's the use of American forces to torture prisoners in the war that it launched. In mid-February, against a backdrop of new revelations about torture at Abu Ghraib and a call by U.N. investigators to shut down the U.S. prison at Guantánamo Bay, Wilkerson sat down for an interview with Salon, following a panel on national security at the University of Maryland. Last fall, he had spoken of a "visible audit trail" on torture leading from the soldiers in the field all the way up to Rumsfeld and Cheney. Continued Impeach BushThe man was lost and then he was found and now he's more lost than ever -- and he's taking us into the darkness with him. It's time to remove him. By Garrison Keillor March 1, 2006 | These are troubling times for all of us who love this country, as surely we all do, even the satirists. You may poke fun at your mother, but if she is belittled by others it burns your bacon. A blowhard French journalist writes a book about America that is full of arrogant stupidity, and you want to let the air out of him and mail him home flat. You hear young people talk about America as if it's all over, and you trust that this is only them talking tough. And then you read the paper and realize the country is led by a man who isn't paying attention, and you hope that somebody will poke him. Or put a sign on his desk that says, "Try Much Harder." Do we need to impeach him to bring some focus to this man's life? The man was lost and then he was found and now he's more lost than ever, plus being blind. Continued
Tape: Bush, Chertoff
Warned Before Katrina March 01,2006 | WASHINGTON -- In dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, risk lives in New Orleans' Superdome and overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential video footage of the briefings. Bush didn't ask a single question during the final government-wide briefing the day before Katrina struck on Aug. 29 but assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: "We are fully prepared." Six days of footage and transcripts obtained by The Associated Press show in excruciating detail that while federal officials anticipated the tragedy that unfolded in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, they were fatally slow to realize they had not mustered enough resources to deal with the unprecedented disaster. Continued
SCHOLARS REPUDIATE OFFICIAL VERSION OF 9/11 Claim government's account violates laws of physics and engineering Duluth, MN (PRWEB) 27 January 2006 -- An influential group of prominent experts and scholars have joined together alleging that senior government officials have covered up crucial facts about what really happened on 9/11. The members of this new non-partisan association, "Scholars for 9/11 Truth" (S9/11T), are convinced their research proves the current administration has been dishonest with the nation about events in New York and Washington, D.C. These experts contend that books and articles by members and associates have established that the World Trade Center was almost certainly brought down by controlled demolitions and that the available relevant evidence casts grave doubt on the official story about the attack on the Pentagon. They believe that the government not only permitted 9/11 to occur but may even have orchestrated these events to facilitate its political agenda. (Continued)
Rarely seen 5-Minute Video of George W. Bush on the Morning of 9/11 http://www.thememoryhole.org/911/bush-911.htm
George W. Bush on the lessons learned in IraqDuring a talk today at Johns Hopkins University, the president of the United States was asked to share with aspiring policymakers "some wisdom or some insight" based on his experience with the "very difficult decisions on the use of force and engaging in war." This is how he responded: "Thanks for the question. I would encourage those of you studying here to be a part of policymaking for our government. It's -- it is a high honor to serve your country. And my first advice is, never use force until you've exhausted all diplomacy. I -- my second advice is, if you ever put anybody in harm's way, make sure they have got all the support of the government. My third advice is, don't make decisions on polls. Stand your ground if you think what you're doing [is] right. "Much of my decision about what we're discussing these days was affected by an event. Look, I -- during the 2000 campaign, I don't remember ever discussing with people what -- could I handle war, or could my opponent handle war. The war wasn't on our mind. War came unexpectedly. We didn't ask for the attack, but it came. And so much of the statements I make and have made since that war were a result of that attack. "I vowed then that I would use all assets of our power to win the war on terror. That's what I vowed. It -- the September 11th attacks affected me. It affected my thinking deeply. The most important job of the government is to protect the people from an attack. And so I said we were going to stay on the offense two ways: one, hunt down the enemy and bring them to justice, and take threats seriously; and two, spread freedom. And that's what we've been doing, and that's what I'm going to continue to do as the president. "I think about the war on terror all the time. (continued)
Colbert's smart bombThe real sign of Stephen Colbert's success at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner wasn't his jokes -- which, from beginning to end, were spot-on, from Bush's handling of the war ("I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least. And by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq") and his low-30s approval rating ("I ask you this, does that not also logically mean that 68 percent approve of the job he's not doing?") to sidelong whacks at John McCain, Fox News and Donald Rumsfeld, among others. And no, it wasn't the grim-looking handshake he received from the president or the icy glare he received from Laura Bush that let us know that Colbert hit his targets. The proof of his accuracy lies in how badly the Tracy Flicks of the Washington press corps reacted. After all, this wasn't the baby-soft slapstick they usually get at the correspondents' dinner. (Anyone else remember when Darrell Hammond got all gushy from meeting Bush in person in 2001? Yeesh.) Sure, C-SPAN's cameras captured a few journalists tittering at each other like naughty schoolgirls, but for the most part journalists sat on their hands –- while just moments before, they were laughing uproariously at President Bush's incredibly lame skit with a Bush impressionist. That was Colbert's real feat: Showing us the real Washington media world, where everyone worries so much about offending someone, anyone, that the least bit of frank talk turns them into obedient little church mice. (Below is his opening monologue. To see his skit -- and icy exchange with the Bushes -- go to the post below.) http://www.salon.com/ent/video_dog/politics/2006/04/30/colbert_press / Dining on the press corpsC-SPAN is replaying it only sparingly today, so here's Stephen Colbert's hilarious audition tape for White House press secretary, presented Saturday night at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner. (Be sure to watch until the end, when he gets a cool reception from the president and Laura Bush.) http://www.salon.com/ent/video_dog/politics/2006/04/30/colbert_white_house/index.html and for an opinion of the above.. http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/05/01/colbert /
Still looking for that ponyAs violence rages from Baghdad to Beirut, George W. Bush was asked today to explain "what has happened to America's clout in this region that you've committed yourself to transform?" Here's how he responded: "It's an interesting period because, instead of having foreign policies based upon trying to create a sense of stability, we have a foreign policy that addresses the root causes of violence and instability. For a while, American foreign policy was just, 'Let's hope everything is calm' -- kind of, managed calm. But beneath the surface brewed a lot of resentment and anger that was manifested on September the 11th. And so we've taken a foreign policy that says: On the one hand, we will protect ourselves from further attack in the short run by being aggressive in chasing down the killers and bringing them to justice. Continued
Conyers (Continued) In addition, Conyers has introduced resolutions calling for the censure of both Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for failing to respond to congressional inquiries about the Downing Street memos and other issues related to the Iraq war. The Conyers resolutions, first reported in Raw Story and confirmed by Conyers' office, are tied to the release of "The Constitution in Crisis," an "investigative status report" by the staff to Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee. In its executive summary, the report states that there is "substantial evidence the president, the vice president and other high ranking members of the Bush administration misled Congress and the American people regarding the decision to go to war with Iraq; misstated and manipulated intelligence information regarding the justification for such war; countenanced torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and other legal violations in Iraq; and permitted inappropriate retaliation against critics of their administration." Further, the report says, there is a prima facie case that the administration's actions "violated a number of federal laws, including (1) Committing a Fraud against the United States; (2) Making False Statements to Congress; (3) The War Powers Resolution; (4) Misuse of Government Funds; (5) federal laws and international treaties prohibiting torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment; (6) federal laws concerning retaliating against witnesses and other individuals; and (7) federal laws and regulations concerning leaking and other misuse of intelligence." The report's authors say that the charges "clearly rise to the level of impeachable conduct," but they say that stonewalling by the Bush administration and a lack of interest by Republicans in Congress mean that more work must be done "before recommendations can be made regarding specific articles of impeachment." The creation of a House select committee -- a move House Republicans will no doubt block -- would be the first step to completing that work. (found at: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/12/20/impeach2/index.html
Democrats (Continued) "Rather than looking backward at yesterday's threats, we are building upon what we have already accomplished to meet evolving threats," said Knocke. According to the Democrats, since the department began operating in March 2003, it has failed to: --Compile a single, comprehensive list prioritizing protections for the nation's most critical and potentially vulnerable buildings, transportation systems and other infrastructure. --Install monitors at borders and every international seaport and airport to screen for radiation material entering the country. --Install surveillance cameras at all high-risk chemical plants. --Create one effective network to share quickly security-related intelligence and alerts with state, local and private industry officials. --Track foreign visitors through a computerized system that takes their fingerprints and photographs as they enter and exit the country. "It would be one thing if the department didn't identify security lapses in the first place, but a more troubling situation when they make promises to the American people and then leave them unfulfilled," Rep. Bennie G. Thompson of Mississippi, the committee's top Democrat, said in a statement accompanying the report. Although the department has missed many of the original deadlines it set for some programs, it is working to complete them. In June, for example, Homeland Security for the first time agreed to pursue federal security regulations for chemical plants that have been mostly policed by private industry. And last week, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the department will have finished the entry portion of the system to track foreigners -- named US-VISIT -- by the end of the year at 115 airports, 14 seaports and 150 land crossings into the country.--__ On the Net: Homeland Security Department: http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/index.jsp House Homeland Security Committee Democrats: http://hsc-democrats.house.gov/ (found at: http://www.salon.com/wire/ap/archive.html?wire=D8EOUCSO2.html)
Jack Abramoff (Continued) --Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., $2,000 will be returned to the Michigan Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe. --Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., $11,000 to the American Indian Center of Chicago and the American Indian Health Service of Chicago. --Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (Republican), $16,000.
Senate Republicans: --Kit Bond, R-Mo., $12,500 to the Salvation Army. --Jim Bunning, R-Ky., $1,000 to the St. Elizabeth Medical Center inpatient hospice program. --Thad Cochran, R-Miss., $8,000 to the Mississippi Hurricane Recovery Fund. --Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., $1,000 to charity. --Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., $1,000 to charity. --Judd Gregg, R-N.H., $12,000 to Marguerites Place. --Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., refunding $4,000 to three Indian tribes. --Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., $18,500 to the Wayside Christian Mission. --Rick Santorum, R-Pa., $2,000 to charity. --Gordon Smith, R-Ore., $8,500 to be refunded or for charity. --John Sununu, R-N.H., $3,000 to charity. --Jim Talent, R-Mo., $2,000 to be refunded. Talent also refunded $3,000 in August 2005. --Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., $8,000 to victims of the 2005 tornado in Wright, Wyo. --John Thune, R-S.D., $2,000 to White Buffalo Calf Woman Society. --John W. Warner, R-Va., $1,000 to charity.
Senate Democrats: --Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., $2,000 to charity. --Tim Johnson, D-S.D., $8,250 to Billy Mills Running Strong for American Indian Youth. --Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., $5,000, to the American Indian College Fund.
House Republicans: --Rodney Alexander, R-La., $2,000 to charity. --Dan Burton, R-Ind., $19,000 to charity. --Chris Cannon, R-Utah, $2,000. --Eric Cantor, R-Va., about $10,000 to the William Byrd Community House. --Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo., $250 to charity. --Thomas M. Davis III, R-Va., amount uncertain. --Kay Granger, R-Texas, $2,000 to Boys and Girls Club of Greater Fort Worth. --J. Randy Forbes, R-Va., $1,000 to charity. --Melissa Hart, R-Pa., $2,000 to two women's shelters. --J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., $2,250 to the Salvation Army Katrina Disaster Fund. --Walter Jones, R-N.C., $1,000 to the Salvation Army. --Donald Manzullo, R-Ill., $2,000 to be returned to the Mississippi band of the Choctaw Indian tribe. --Jim McCrery, R-La., $35,000 to the Salvation Army. --Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., $1,000 to Crossroads Safehouse. --Bob Ney, R-Ohio, $9,000 to charity. --Chip Pickering, R-Miss., at least $2,500 to the Mississippi Hurricane Recovery Fund. --Deborah Pryce, R-Ohio, $8,000 to charity. --Hal Rogers, R-Ky., $32,000 to the UNITE Foundation. --Paul Ryan, R-Wis., $949 to USO Operation Phone Home. --Jim Saxton, R-N.J., $7,000 total refunded in 2004, 2005 and 2006. --Bill Shuster, R-Pa., $1,000 to charity. --John Sweeney, R-N.Y., $2,000 to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. --Curt Weldon, R-Pa., $2,000 to charity. --Jerry Weller, R-Ill., at least $500 to charity. --Roger Wicker, R-Miss., $250 to Mississippi Hurricane Recovery Fund. --Heather Wilson, R-N.M., $1,000 to the Great Southwest Council of the Boy Scouts of America.
House Democrats: --Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, $500 to be returned to the Tigua tribe of El Paso. --Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., $1,000 to be returned to the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe. --Lane Evans, D-Ill., $2,000 to Community Caring Conference. --Tim Holden, D-Pa., $1,000 to an animal shelter. --Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., $2,000 to be refunded. --Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., $6,950 to be refunded. --Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., $2,000 to charity. December 2005: --Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., $18,892 to seven tribal colleges. --Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., $42,000 to charity. --Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., about $150,000 donated to Native American charities and refunded. --Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., $3,750 to North Dakota's tribal colleges. --Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., $67,000 refunded. --Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., $6,000 to the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. --Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., $19,900 refunded and given to charity. August-November 2005 --Rep. Mike Ferguson, R-N.J., $1,000 to the Children's Specialized Hospital Foundation. --Rep. Frank LoBiondo, R-N.J., returned $1,000. --Rep. Ralph Regula, R-Ohio, $1,000 to the American Indian College Fund. --Rep. Rob Simmons, R-Conn., $1,250 to the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund.
February 2002 --Sen. David Vitter, R-La., $6,000 refunded. (Found at: http://www.salon.com/wire/ap/archive.html?wire=D8EUNIVO2.html)
IRS (Continued) Speaking of which , Johnston's second story hits another subject that the IRS would probably rather not have the public discussing: The IRS's taxpayer advocate, Nina Olson, told Congress this week that the agency has devoted what Johnston calls "vastly more resources to pursuing questionable refunds sought by the poor -- which under the highest estimate is $9 billion -- than to the $100 billion in taxes not paid each year by people who work for cash and either fail to file tax returns or understate their income."
Along the way, Olson told Congress that the IRS has, over the last five years, frozen tax refunds owed to 1.6 million poor Americans. Most of those filers had claimed the earned-income credit, and most had done absolutely nothing wrong: A sampling by Olson's staff found that 66 percent of the Americans whose refunds were being withheld as "fraudulent" were entitled to the refunds they sought -- or even more. The amount of money involved isn't insignificant, at least to the families that aren't getting it. Olson's study found that that the average annual income reported on the frozen returns was $13,000. The average frozen refund was $3,500. (found at: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/01/11/irs/index.html)
Rove Continued By the standards of Washington soap opera, Rove's luncheon address offered the kind of melodrama that only C-SPAN could love. But taken together with a morning speech by RNC chairman Ken Mehlman, this rhetorical onslaught offered intriguing clues about where the Republican high command wants to position the party for the congressional elections. Both Rove and Mehlman were playing to their base -- the state chairmen and elephant-pin-wearing local stalwarts who constitute the pachyderm heart of the Republican Party. The two speeches, which were only intermittently interrupted by applause, should not be parsed the same way as a George W. Bush campaign appearance or an interview session on a Sunday talk show. For despite the TV cameras hoping for Rovian pyrotechnics and the three dozen political reporters missing the campaign season, the true audience for these low-key talks were the political professionals in the room and not the unwashed mass of voters at home. What Rove and Mehlman offered could have been billed as "Talking Points to Give to Your Candidates." Rove, in particular, honed his message down to three big themes -- national security ("America is at war"), the economy ("We're heading into 2006 with a full head of steam") and the courts ("Two extraordinary judges: John Roberts and Samuel Alito"). As a result, the speech was like the dog that didn't bark in the Sherlock Holmes story. The most important clues were found in the topics that Rove neglected to mention. No reference was made to Social Security (remember the Bush privatization plan that was designed as the centerpiece of the second term?), health care (anyone want a flawed prescription-drug program?) or energy (didn't our future depend on Arctic drilling?). The advisor once called "Bush's brain" also took a Pasadena on congressional reform, though Mehlman did declare in his best I-hate-lobbyists indignation, "If Republicans are guilty of illegal or inappropriate behavior, they should pay the price and suffer the consequences." What Rove underscored in his stripped-down presentation was the degree to which the White House is gearing up for another "He Protected Us Against Osama bin Laden Even If We Can't Find Him" election. For terrorism remains the most potent political argument for reelecting a Republican Congress. Iraq may be a quagmire, but Rove and Co. are stuck with it. That is why Democratic critics will constantly hear variants of Rove's assertion, "To retreat before victory has been won would be a reckless act -- and the president and our party will not allow it." Rove and Mehlman seized on the attacks on the National Security Agency's outside-the-law eavesdropping with such zest that it was clear that they regarded the leak of the story to the New York Times as a political plus for the president. (Note to the blogosphere: I am not a conspiracy theorist suggesting that the Republicans are the leakers in this case.) As Rove put it, "President Bush believes if al-Qaida is calling somebody in America, it is in our national-security interest to know who they're calling and why. Some important Democrats clearly disagree. This is an issue worthy of a public debate." The message for the congressional Democrats from this ought to be that the Republicans are going to attack them as weaklings no matter what they do, so instead of rolling over and bleating "We love warrantless wiretapping too," they ought to go down fighting. Yes, Rove also talked about the economy (message: the tax cuts worked) and the Supreme Court (message: our say-nothing nomination strategy worked). But a Republican running for reelection promising tax cuts is as boring to the voters as a Democrat vowing to protect every hair on the graying head of the Social Security program. And while getting Roberts and (soon) Alito on the Supreme Court represents a major triumph for Bush, this sweeping victory also makes it nearly impossible for the GOP to rail against the so-called liberal Supreme Court in the 2006 elections. Other presidents, particularly Bill Clinton, needed the Permanent Campaign to sustain them politically. As Rove demonstrated Friday in his first out-from-hiding speech since November, Bush and the Republicans are banking everything politically on the Permanent War. (Found at: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/01/21/rove/)
Rogue State (Continued) By Friday morning, "Rogue State" was ranked No. 35 on Amazon, just behind Harry Potter and just ahead of Strunk & White. At home, in his small Connecticut Avenue apartment, Blum was delighted to learn from a reporter news about his newfound profitability. "Oh my God," the author exclaimed, wearing his morning slippers as he scribbled the Amazon statistics on a pad of paper. "I must tell my publisher." It was the latest shocker in a two-day whirlwind for Blum, a former State Department employee whose ideological views fall somewhere between those of Noam Chomsky and Ramsey Clark. A simple, earnest man, with a grandfather beard and gold-rimmed glasses, he is used to the quiet life, working at his computer on his e-newsletter, the Anti-Empire Report, and taking walks in the neighborhood. But he did not sleep much Thursday night, following a trio of last-minute television appearances on CNN, ABC News and MSNBC. "Are you familiar with MSNBC? Is that on the Internet?" he asked, his antenna-only television sitting a few feet away. "If one has cable one can get that?" Then the phone rang. It was a producer for National Public Radio, who wanted to book him on a show. The Times of London and the New York Post had called minutes earlier. Then Christopher Dickey, of Newsweek, was on the line from Paris. A moment later, a reporter for the Washington Post style section. "That's the Washington Post," Blum said, after hanging up the phone. "They will not print any of my letters ever, but now they are sending over a man to interview me." The phone rang again. The Post wanted to send a photographer. "Oh boy," said Blum, who wore a loose-fitting plaid shirt. "This is very new. I have a very fixed daily routine of taking care of my e-mail, and my e-mail has ballooned beyond my control." It's easy enough to see why bin Laden chose Blum -- despite the fact that Blum grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., the child of Jewish immigrants from Poland. In the first line of "Rogue State," Blum writes, "Washington's war on terrorism is as doomed to failure as its war on drugs has been." This fits securely into the singular theme that Blum has pursued through four books. "The U.S. government does not mean well. It doesn't care whether it does good or bad," he explained. "The second lesson is that anti-American terrorists are not motivated at all by things cultural. It's what we do. It's American foreign policy." Over the years, Blum's books have been translated into 15 different languages, including Chinese, Korean, Greek, Finnish, Spanish and two Arabic editions. They are all displayed on one of the many bookshelves in his small living room, a converted office otherwise decorated with the detritus of an activist's life: A dollar bill with President Bush's face and the words "The United States of Aggression"; a Project Censored award; and a lapel pin that says, "Gay Whales Against Racism." He admits, "I am not very p.c." He arrived in Washington in the 1960s, an avowed anti-communist with dreams of joining the Foreign Service. But his State Department career was cut short after he became a leader in the local protests against the Vietnam War. He later founded a short-lived alternative magazine called the Washington Free Press, which he admits in retrospect was not Pulitzer quality. "The others thought that editing was bourgeois," he said. The Free Press folded in 1970, and Blum began traveling the world, living in Chile during the presidency of Salvador Allende, in Germany and in England. His wife, whom he is separated from, still lives in Germany with their 24-year-old son. He published his first book in 1986, "The CIA: A Forgotten History," which received back-cover blurbs from Gore Vidal and Oliver Stone. As for his newest booster, Blum offers no apologies. "The people who have interviewed me in the last few days, they keep pressing me to say how repulsed I am to get a plug from Osama bin Laden. I am not repulsed." That is not to say he has any sympathy for bin Laden's brand of violence or religious extremism, only that he is not surprised that bin Laden agrees with his writing. "I hate any kind of religious fundamentalism," he says. He did not support U.S. military actions in Afghanistan or Iraq, but he says he would hate to see bin Laden and his crew in charge of either country. "The oppression of women," he says. "The whole thing turns me off." "Rogue State" was originally published before the attacks of Sept. 11. Bin Laden, perhaps lacking a fact-checking department or easy access to a library, actually never quoted from that book. In his video, he used words from one of Blum's later works, "Freeing the World to Death." The inaccurate citation doesn't bother Blum, who stands behind the writing that caught bin Laden's eye: "If I were the president, I could stop terrorist attacks against the United States in a few days. Permanently," reads the section quoted in part by the world's most notorious terrorist. "I would first apologize to all the widows and orphans, the tortured and impoverished, and all the many millions of other victims of American imperialism." In that passage, Blum goes on to explain that he would end American support for Israel and reduce the military budget by 90 percent. "That's what I'd do on my first three days in the White House," Blum writes. "On the fourth day, I'd be assassinated." Who would assassinate him? Blum smiled at the question. Standing at the center of an international media swarm, he raised his arms and extended his forefingers to pantomime quotation marks. He paused for dramatic effect. "Them." (found at: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/01/21/bin_laden_book/index.html)
Lawrence Wilkerson (Continued) Wilkerson said that by the time of the Abu Ghraib revelations in spring 2004, he began to realize how "deeply contaminated" the military had become due to post-9/11 interrogation policies. A military man of 31 years, he knew that the widespread abuses could have taken place only if sanctioned from high up in the civilian and military leadership. Powell, who had served as the nation's top general under the first President Bush, apparently knew so, too. "When the word was out that the Abu Ghraib photographs were about to break, the secretary of state walked through my door and said, 'Larry, I need you to get together with Will Taft [Powell's lawyer] and build me an audit trail. I need all the paperwork -- I need a description of how we got to where we are.'" Over the next several months, Wilkerson developed a dossier of both internal and public materials that pointed to the vice president's office. "I saw a chain of information and orders going out to the field that were codified in memoranda," Wilkerson said. "Reading between the lines -- and sometimes even reading the lines -- they essentially said, 'This is a new war. These people are different. Geneva doesn't apply, and we need intelligence. So smack these guys, stack 'em up. Use whatever means you need.'" The materials he gathered and the many communications he had with people in the field formed a clear picture. "What got implemented in the field," he said, "was the position Cheney and Rumsfeld argued for all along: gloves off." In response to the initial wave of Abu Ghraib revelations, Rumsfeld said in a congressional hearing on May 7, 2004: "Mr. Chairman, I know you join me today in saying to the world: Judge us by our actions. Watch how Americans, watch how a democracy deals with wrongdoing and scandal and the pain of acknowledging and correcting our own mistakes and weaknesses." While a handful of enlisted soldiers have since been convicted of crimes, no high-level U.S. officials have been brought to justice for wrongdoing. International law as well as the U.S. military's doctrine of command responsibility holds that officials -- military or civilian -- who condone or allow subordinates to commit torture can also be held criminally liable. But the military has thwarted investigation "every step of the way," Wilkerson said. "I got little help from the services," he said of his work on the torture dossier. "Vice Admiral [Albert] Church [who led one of the military's own investigations into torture] more or less stonewalled me. Others stonewalled me. There's been an awful lot of coverup." According to Wilkerson, one of several memos signed by Rumsfeld approved dozens of interrogation techniques, which were posted in Abu Ghraib. One item on the list sanctioned the use of military dogs. "When you tell an E-4 [an Army corporal] or E-6 [staff sergeant] they can use a dog as long as it's muzzled -- and you also put heavy pressure on them to get intelligence -- it's clear what happens next. Once that muzzled dog fails in that interrogation session, the next thing they're going to do is take the muzzle off." More abominable, Wilkerson said, is that these conditions weren't set just for suspected al-Qaida or Taliban members, but for any of the tens of thousands of prisoners taken in Iraq whom Bush had declared entitled to Geneva protections. The military has acknowledged that the vast majority of prisoners in Iraq -- as well as the majority of those in Guantánamo -- have been of little or no intelligence value. Wilkerson, 60, exited the Bush government along with his former boss in January 2005; he now teaches at George Washington University and the College of William and Mary. He speaks in direct and sometimes folksy language, his accent evocative of small-town South Carolina, where he grew up. The son of a World War II veteran, Wilkerson decided in 1966 to drop his English lit studies at Bucknell University and to serve in Vietnam. The Army career to which he dedicated half his life began with service as a helicopter pilot scouting for the infantry, which took him repeatedly into heavy combat. After the war, Wilkerson attended the elite Airborne and Ranger schools, completed his B.A. and earned advanced degrees in international relations and national-security studies. He attended and taught at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., and went on to serve as acting director of the Marine Corps War College at Quantico, Va. Wilkerson met Powell in 1989, beginning his 16 years on Powell's staff as an aide and speechwriter, rising to become Powell's top deputy during George W. Bush's first term. Naturally, Wilkerson has drawn fierce counterattacks for his criticisms, notably from the president's loyal lieutenants. As Powell's point man for preparing the case for a war on Iraq, he received top-level intelligence briefings. Nevertheless, in November, Rumsfeld called Wilkerson's charges "ridiculous," telling CNN, "In terms of having firsthand information, I just can't imagine that he does." Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated that he had no recollection of Wilkerson's attending meetings with military commanders, the National Security Council or the president. "I have never seen that colonel," Pace said. Wilkerson responded to a recounting of those comments by noting that Pace had been his immediate supervisor back at the Marine Corps War College. "We sat in the chapel together when a dear friend of ours was buried," he said. "He came into my seminars. Pete Pace not knowing me? Come on. That was an embarrassing moment." Wilkerson has the ability to listen keenly and hold his opinions in reserve. During the panel discussion at the University of Maryland, he sat back as fellow speaker Frank Gaffney, the tenaciously right-wing founder of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, responded to most audience questions by preaching about the apocalyptic horrors likely to be unleashed on America and the rest of the civilized world by "Islamofacism." Still, by the time Gaffney declared, "Like it or not, we're in a war that will last the rest of our lives, and likely our children's and grandchildren's lives," Wilkerson rolled his eyes, and along with a slight, incredulous smile, glanced at his watch. Wilkerson's voice rose in anger when he discussed what he saw as the "hijacking" of policy inside the administration. "Those people are not conservatives," the lifelong Republican said of Cheney and his inner circle. "I'm a conservative. Those people are radicals." Accounts of the manipulation of intelligence by administration hard-liners in the march to war have continued to emerge in recent months. In 2003, when Powell presented his case to the United Nations on Saddam Hussein's biological weapons, he relied heavily on intelligence gleaned from an Iraqi defector code-named "Curveball." But according to an in-depth report published in the Los Angeles Times in November, top CIA operations officials, including then chief of clandestine services James Pavitt, had grave doubts about Curveball long before Powell's U.N. speech. They'd determined Curveball was unstable, an opportunist and a fabricator, and had sounded the alarm about him repeatedly. "My people were saying, 'We think he's a stinker,'" Pavitt, who retired from the agency in August 2004, told the Times. But former CIA director George Tenet, who had told the president there was a "slam dunk" case for war, maintained that deep skepticism about Curveball never reached him. "Preposterous," Wilkerson said. "It's extremely difficult for me to believe that James Pavitt's doubts didn't get through to Tenet. Pavitt was one of Tenet's principal operators in the CIA." Today, Wilkerson continues to see an administration that punishes dissent, pushes a radical reinterpretation of the Constitution, and exploits executive power. "Brent Scowcroft said he didn't recognize Dick Cheney anymore," he said. "I don't know Dick Cheney as intimately as Scowcroft does, but I did see him as secretary of defense and now as vice president. I can tell you that 9/11 made him a paranoid, to the extent where I'm not sure his exercise of power carries with it reason." "I've been told by several Republicans that Cheney was the first vice president ever to come sit down in the middle of a [Senate] caucus and chide the members on their votes," Wilkerson added. "This is not going to the CIA, where he also exercised undue influence -- this is going to the Congress and using the office of the vice president essentially to intimidate lawmakers in their discussions." Wilkerson expressed genuine concerns about terrorism. But he said the administration has played the fear card with lawmakers by suggesting that if the United States gets hit again, it will be their fault unless they back such policies as warrantless spying on Americans and the brutal interrogation of prisoners. Such interrogation led Wilkerson to cite Aharon Barak, the chief of the Israeli Supreme Court, which ruled against the torture of prisoners in 1999. "This is the destiny of a democracy, as not all means are acceptable to it, and not all practices employed by its enemies are open before it," Barak wrote in the decision. "Although a democracy must often fight with one hand tied behind its back, it nonetheless has the upper hand." Losing that upper hand, Wilkerson said, "is a very dangerous thing." (Found at: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/02/27/wilkerson/index.html)
Garrison Keillor (Continued) The Feb. 27 issue of the New Yorker carries an article by Jane Mayer about a loyal conservative Republican and U.S. Navy lawyer, Albert Mora, and his resistance to the torture of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. From within the Pentagon bureaucracy, he did battle against Donald Rumsfeld and John Yoo at the Justice Department and shadowy figures taking orders from Dick (Gunner) Cheney, arguing America had ratified the Geneva Convention that forbids cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of prisoners, and so it has the force of law. They seemed to be arguing that the president has the right to order prisoners to be tortured. One such prisoner, Mohammed al-Qahtani, was held naked in isolation under bright lights for months, threatened by dogs, subjected to unbearable noise volumes, and otherwise abused, so that he begged to be allowed to kill himself. When the Senate approved the Torture Convention in 1994, it defined torture as an act "specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering." Is the law a law or is it a piece of toast? Wiretap surveillance of Americans without a warrant? Great. Go for it. How about turning over American ports to a country more closely tied to 9/11 than Saddam Hussein was? Fine by me. No problem. And what about the war in Iraq? Hey, you're doing a heck of a job, Brownie. No need to tweak a thing. And your blue button-down shirt -- it's you. But torture is something else. When Americans start pulling people's fingernails out with pliers and poking lighted cigarettes into their palms, then we need to come back to basic values. Most people agree with this, and in a democracy that puts the torturers in a delicate position. They must make sure to destroy their e-mails and have subordinates who will take the fall. Because it is impossible to keep torture secret. It goes against the American grain and it eats at the conscience of even the most disciplined, and in the end the truth will come out. It is coming out now. According to the leaders of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission, our country is practically as vulnerable today as it was on 9/10. Our seaports are wide open, our airspace is not secure except for the nation's capital, and little has been done about securing the nuclear bomb materials lying around in the world. They give the administration D's and F's in most categories of defending against terrorist attack. Our adventure in Iraq, at a cost of trillions, has brought that country to the verge of civil war while earning us more enemies than ever before. And tax money earmarked for security is being dumped into pork barrel projects anywhere somebody wants their own SWAT team. Detonation of a nuclear bomb within our borders -- pick any big city -- is a real possibility, as much so now as five years ago. Meanwhile, many Democrats have conceded the very subject of security and positioned themselves as Guardians of Our Forests and Benefactors of Waifs and Owls, neglecting the most basic job of government, which is to defend this country. We might rather be comedians or daddies or tattoo artists or flamenco dancers, but we must attend to first things. The peaceful lagoon that is the White House is designed for the comfort of a vulnerable man. Perfectly understandable, but not what is needed now. The U.S. Constitution provides a simple ultimate way to hold him to account for war crimes and the failure to attend to the country's defense. Impeach him and let the Senate hear the evidence. - - - - - - - - - - - -
Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home
Companion" can be heard Saturday nights on public radio stations across
the country.)
(found at: http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/03/01/keillor)
Bush, Chertoff Warned Before Katrina (Continued) Linked by secure video, Bush's bravado on Aug. 29 starkly contrasts with the dire warnings his disaster chief and a cacophony of federal, state and local officials provided during the four days before the storm. A top hurricane expert voiced "grave concerns" about the levees and then-Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown told the president and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that he feared there weren't enough disaster teams to help evacuees at the Superdome. "I'm concerned about ... their ability to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe," Brown told his bosses the afternoon before Katrina made landfall. Some of the footage conflicts with the defenses that federal, state and local officials have made in trying to deflect blame and minimize the political fallout from the failed Katrina response: --Homeland Security officials have said the "fog of war" blinded them early on to the magnitude of the disaster. But the video and transcripts show federal and local officials discussed threats clearly, reviewed long-made plans and understood Katrina would wreak devastation of historic proportions. "I'm sure it will be the top 10 or 15 when all is said and done," National Hurricane Center's Max Mayfield warned the day Katrina lashed the Gulf Coast. "I don't buy the `fog of war' defense," Brown told the AP in an interview Wednesday. "It was a fog of bureaucracy." --Bush declared four days after the storm, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees" that gushed deadly flood waters into New Orleans. But the transcripts and video show there was plenty of talk about that possibility -- and Bush was worried too. (found at: http://www.salon.com/wire/ap/archive.html?wire=D8G31KPG2.html)
Scholars Repudiate Official Version of 9/11 (Continued).. The society includes U.S. and international faculty and students of history, science, military affairs, psychology, and even philosophy. According to its spokesmen, S9/11T represents a concerted effort to uphold the standards of truth and justice and to strengthen democracy in this nation, which has taken a terrible hit in the aftermath of 9/11, when "everything changed." Its function is to bring scientific rigor to the study of 9/11 phenomena. The members of this group are dedicated to exposing falsehoods and to revealing truths behind 9/11, "letting the chips fall where they may." The evidence has become sufficiently strong that they are speaking out. They are actively devoting themselves to reporting the results of their research to the public by means of lectures, articles, and other venues. The society includes numerous notable professors and scholars, including:
The society, founded by Professors Fetzer and Jones, who serve as its co-chairs, is approaching 50 members to date. Fetzer, a philosopher of science, observed that the government's "official account" is not even physically possible, because it violates laws of nature. "What we have been told is fine," he said, "if you are willing to believe impossible things. Serious scholars don't believe in tooth fairies." Beyond encouraging its members to vigorously express their concerns on this score through lectures, conferences, symposia, articles, and books as well as other access routes that publicize their findings,the society's initial activities, which are expected to increase in frequency and intensity, include the following projects and endeavors: Professor Jones is refining his influential analysis of the physics of the collapse of buildings at the World Trade Center. Professor Fetzer is editing a collection of new studies about 9/11 that will include contributions from the members of S9/11T. A major conference is being planned for this fall to further inform the American public about the group's most recent findings Studies by the society's founders and by prominent theologian David Ray Griffin, who has taken a leading role in exposing false claims about 9/11, are accessible from the association's home page, www.scholarsfor911truth.org Information for those who may want to join S9/11T can also be found there. (Found at http://www.scholarsfor911truth.org/PressRelease27Jan2006.html) For more information: http://youtube.com/watch?v=psP_9RE0V2I
George W. Bush on the lessons learned in Iraq (continued) Now, I understand there's a difference of opinion in a country. Some view the attack as kind of an isolated incident. I don't. I view it as a part of a strategy by a totalitarian, ideologically based group of people who've announced their intentions to spread that ideology and to attack us again. That's what they've said they're going to do. And the most dangerous -- the biggest danger facing our country is whether -- if the terrorists get a weapons of mass destruction to use. Now, perhaps some in our country think it's a -- that's a pipedream; I don't. I think it is a very real threat, and therefore, will spend my presidency rallying our assets -- intelligence assets, military assets, financial assets, diplomatic initiatives -- to keep the enemy off balance, and to bring them to justice. "Now, if you're going to be the president or a policymaker, you never know what's going to come. That's the interesting thing about the world in which we live. We're a influential nation, and so, therefore, many problems come to the Oval Office. And you don't know what those problems are going to be, which then argues for having smart people around. That's why you ought to serve in government if you're not going to be the president. You have a chance to influence policy by giving good recommendations to the president. "You got to listen in my line of work, and I listen a lot. Ours is a complex organization that requires a management structure that lets people come into the Oval Office and explain their positions. And I think it's to my interest, by the way, that not everybody agree all the time. You can't make good decisions unless there's a little -- kind of a little agitation in there. And sometimes we have. "But anyway, good question. I guess, my answer to your question is, is that you got to be ready for the unexpected. And when you act, you base your decisions on principles. I'll tell you one principle -- I'm not going to filibuster, I promise -- but you got me going here, so --. I want you to understand this principle, and it's an important debate and it's worth debating here in this school, as to whether or not freedom is universal, whether or not it's a universal right of all men and women. It's an interesting part of the international dialogue today. And I think it is universal. And if you believe it's universal, I believe this country has -- should act on that concept of universality. And the reason I do is because I do believe freedom yields the peace. "And our foreign policy prior to my arrival was 'if it seems okay, leave it alone.' In other words, if it's nice and placid out there on the surface, it's okay, just let it sit. But unfortunately, beneath the surface was resentment and hatred, and that kind of resentment and hatred provided ample recruitment, fertile grounds for recruiting people that came and killed over 3,000 of our citizens. And therefore, I believe the way to defeat resentment is with freedom and liberty. "But if you don't believe it's universal, I can understand why you say, what's he doing, why is he doing that? If there's no such thing as the universality of freedom, then we might as well just isolate ourselves and hope for the best. "And so -- anyway, kind of rambling here. Yes."
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